How long did the Chuhuiv fire last?

According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 August 2024 to 4 September 2024 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 August 2024 to 2 September 2024.

How much area did it burn?

The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,028 hectares (20.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.

Which municipalities burned?

The fire entered 3 municipalities: Chuhuiv (1,592 ha, 1.6 %); Kharkiv (308 ha, 0.2 %); Vovchansk (132 ha, 0.1 %).

Did the fire reach a town?

The fire started in Chuhuiv and came within 29.4 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.

What was the weather like?

During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.

Where does this data come from?

From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ukraine (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

UA · Ukraine · 2024-08-30 → 2024-09-04

Chuhuiv fire, 30 August 2024 Чугуївський район · Chuhuiv, Kharkiv, Vovchansk

Out · last detection 2 Sept 2024, 10:40 UTC

The fire started on 30 August 2024 in Chuhuiv, Ukraine, and satellites saw it burning for 6 days. Copernicus mapped a burnt perimeter of 2,028 hectares from satellite imagery, spread across 3 municipalities.

It is the 7th largest in Kharkiv Oblast since 2016 (of 558 with a page). Number 42 in Ukraine in 2024, of 2092.

Compare with…

Suggestions: Chuhuiv · 2024 Kharkiv · 2024 Vovchansk · 2024 Vovchansk · 2024

Burnt area: 2,028ha; Copernicus perimeter
Duration: 6days; 30 Aug 2024 – 4 Sept 2024
Municipalities hit: 3; districts
Started on: 30 Aug; 2024
Heat detections: 90; in a single hotspot: 47 MW
Danger at start: 47; Very high · FWI index
Average daily power: 189MW; detected power per day, on average

HOTSPOTS BY DAY 30 Aug4 Sept

Play back 2 Sept 2024

How it evolved, day by day

30 Aug 31 Aug 1 Sept 2 Sept

Fire radiative power detected each day, in megawatts, and number of hotspots. The magenta bar marks the peak day.

The weather it burned in

32°high

57km/h · peak gust

17%lowest humidity

It had gone 17 days without rain (1 mm or more) when it started.

This area had burned before

7% of the perimeter overlaps earlier fires recorded since 2016: 133 ha in 2022.

How big is it?

It burned the equivalent of 1.3% of the area of London (20 km² against 1,583 km²).

London boundary: geoBoundaries · Office for National Statistics (Open Government Licence v3.0).

This compares size, not location: both shapes are at the same scale, north up, centred on each other.

What happened to each town

Chuhuiv Чугуївський район 29.4 km from the centre where it started

1,592 ha reached on 30 Aug

1.6 %
Kharkiv Харківський район 178,602 inhabitants · 32.7 km from the centre

308 ha reached on 31 Aug

0.2 %
Vovchansk Вовчанський район 32.8 km from the centre

132 ha reached on 30 Aug

0.1 %

Burnt area inside each municipality, from crossing the official perimeter with administrative boundaries. The distance runs from the point marking the centre of each area to the nearest fire: staying a kilometre away does not mean it reached the houses.

What burned

Agricultural areas55 %
Mixed forest36 %
Other natural land7.3 %
Broadleaved forest1.2 %

Land cover inside the perimeter as reported by Copernicus EFFIS (outside the Corine Land Cover area).

People and buildings inside the perimeter

GHSL 2025

Built-up area1.2 ha

Residents≈ 60

Inside the perimeter there were about 1.2 hectares of built-up land and about 60 residents (GHSL 2025, satellite-based estimate).

This is an estimate on 100 m cells, made from satellite imagery and census data: it does not mean that homes burned or that anyone was harmed. The perimeter also contains land that never burned. The GHSL 2025 epoch is a projection made from 2020 and earlier data.

Source: Global Human Settlement Layer (GHS-BUILT-S and GHS-POP R2023A), European Commission Joint Research Centre (JRC), © European Union, CC BY 4.0. Sum inside the perimeter computed by WorldFires. human-settlement.emergency.copernicus.eu

The weather day by day

ECMWF ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, the standard reference for past weather, and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (the same system Copernicus uses), computed by WorldFires from that data. Days after the fire run until the first rain.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)

Day	High	Min. humidity	Peak gust	Rain	Danger (FWI)
30 Aug	30.8 °C	17 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 47
31 Aug	31.9 °C	20 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
1 Sept	29.9 °C	21 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
2 Sept	30.2 °C	24 %	57 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 56
3 Sept	26.5 °C	24 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 48
4 Sept	28.1 °C	18 %	48 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 49
5 Sept after	27.2 °C	30 %	46 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
6 Sept after	24.9 °C	22 %	45 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 44
7 Sept after	24.6 °C	24 %	36 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 40
8 Sept after	25.3 °C	23 %	42 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 43
9 Sept after	26.7 °C	19 %	44 km/h	0.0 mm	Very high 45
10 Sept after	25.7 °C	37 %	40 km/h	0.1 mm	High 37
11 Sept after	27.7 °C	42 %	39 km/h	0.3 mm	High 33
12 Sept after	29.5 °C	19 %	50 km/h	0.0 mm	Extreme 52

Before and after, from space

Drag the line to compare the same ground before the fire and after it.

↔

Before · 23 Aug 2024

After · 11 Sept 2024

Before After

If the day is cloudy, change the date: each satellite passes once a day. In false colour the burnt ground looks brown or red.

The smoke

CAMS · Copernicus

On 2 September 2024 the air beside the fire reached 25 µg/m³ of PM2.5. That day averaged 17: 1.2 times the WHO daily guideline (15).

PM2.5 peak25 µg/m³

Days over the guideline2 days

PM10126 µg/m³

Optical depth0.61

WHO 15

2829303112345

Good Fair Moderate Poor Very poor Extremely poor

Particles from the Copernicus CAMS model at the centre of the perimeter; these are not measurements in each town. The pale bar is the worst hour, the solid one the daily average.

Open-Meteo.com (CC BY 4.0) · Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS)

Detections table · 90Every satellite heat detection, one by one, with time, satellite, power and coordinates.

⬇ Download CSV Times in UTC. Each detection is a 375 m pixel: a large fire yields hundreds per pass.

Date and time	Satellite	FRP (MW)	Lat	Lon

Other fires nearby

All fires in Ukraine ›

Frequently asked questions

How long did the Chuhuiv fire last?: According to the heat detections seen by satellite inside the perimeter, it burned from 30 August 2024 to 4 September 2024 (6 days). The perimeter dates it from 31 August 2024 to 2 September 2024.
How much area did it burn?: The perimeter Copernicus measured from satellite imagery is 2,028 hectares (20.3 km²). Official national figures may differ.
Which municipalities burned?: The fire entered 3 municipalities: Chuhuiv (1,592 ha, 1.6 %); Kharkiv (308 ha, 0.2 %); Vovchansk (132 ha, 0.1 %).
Did the fire reach a town?: The fire started in Chuhuiv and came within 29.4 km of its centre. That is the distance from the perimeter, or the nearest hotspot, to the point marking the centre; it does not mean it entered the houses.
What was the weather like?: During the fire the temperature reached 31.9 °C, humidity dropped to 17 % and gusts hit 57 km/h. The fire danger index (FWI) reached 56, class Extreme.
Where does this data come from?: From the EFFIS (Copernicus) burnt perimeter, NASA FIRMS VIIRS hotspots and the administrative boundaries of Ukraine (geoBoundaries). It is not an official report.

Where to verify it

A satellite detection is not an official report. Final figures and the fire’s status are published by each country’s emergency service.

Emergency number: 101 · 112 · Emergency number and official warnings ›

ДСНС · State Emergency Service ↗

Satellite cross-check

NASA FIRMS ↗
EFFIS · Copernicus ↗

History of this page Changes in area, dates, name, official record or merged pages, compared every night since 24 October 2026.

No changes since 24 October 2026.

RSS Changes to this page

Does something look wrong on this page?

This page is built from satellite data and official records, and it sometimes gets things wrong: the wrong dates, the wrong town, two fires merged into one, or something that was not a wildfire at all. If you know this fire first-hand (you live nearby, saw it, fought it or reported on it), tell us what really happened and we will check it.

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What really happened?

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We will only use your email to reply about this report. Privacy. This is not an emergency service: if there is a fire now, call 101 · 112.

How we know this

Perimeter: EFFIS (Copernicus), mapped on satellite imagery.
Dates adjusted with the VIIRS detections inside the perimeter, which said 31 August 2024 to 2 September 2024. 90 Suomi-NPP VIIRS detections on those dates.
We have not matched this page with any official record.
Weather: Copernicus ERA5 reanalysis at the fire location, in cells of about 25 km.
Built-up area and population come from the JRC Global Human Settlement Layer (epoch 2025, 100 m cells), summed inside the perimeter: an estimate of what was there, not a damage count.

How we build fire pages: methodology ›

Where this data comes from

The perimeter and land cover come from the Copernicus European Forest Fire Information System (EFFIS), measured on MODIS and Sentinel-2 imagery and published under CC BY 4.0. Heat detections come from the VIIRS sensors aboard Suomi-NPP and NOAA-20, distributed by NASA FIRMS at 375 m resolution. Municipal boundaries come from geoBoundaries ADM2 (Public Domain). The area per municipality is computed by WorldFires by crossing the perimeter with those boundaries, so it may differ slightly from each country’s official figure.

Where it burned